CM’s close aide or CM aspirant? The curious case of Satish Jarkiholi

Satish Jarkiholi, influential Karnataka politician with a controversial past, emerges as a potential successor to the Chief Minister.

When Jacqueline Mukangira, the High Commissioner of Rwanda to India, visited Belagavi in September 2024, she toured the Suvarna Soudha, the venue for the winter session of the legislature of Karnataka. She met officials and industrialists at a private hotel during which she invited them to invest in her country.

Satish Jarkiholi, Public Works Minister and district in-charge, who spoke at the meeting, said he had found the government in Rwanda to be ‘very welcoming’. He asked entrepreneurs from northern Karnataka to invest the African country. He also surprised local businessmen, when he said he had made several trips to the African country and had decided to set up a sports school in Rwanda.

Most people in the State, however, do not identify Mr. Jarkiholi as an off-shore investor. Apart from his politics, his fame comes from Manava Bandhutva Vedike (MBV), a liberal-progressive organisation that he founded. Every year, MBV holds a meeting against blind beliefs at a burial ground in Belagavi. Public intellectuals address the crowd and have lunch in the graveyard later. Mr. Jarkiholi spends the night at the cemetery.

Satish Jarkiholi, 61, the KPCC working president and MLA from Yamakanamaradi in Belagavi district, is attracting much attention at the moment because of a series of meetings he has been holding with Congress leaders — from the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge to select ministers and local leaders in Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s home town, Mysuru.

These come at a time when the State politics is witnessing a churn over Enforcement Directorate and Lokayukta probes into allotment of sites by Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) to Mr. Siddaramaiah’s wife and demand from the Opposition for his resignation.

Some Congress leaders maintain that Mr. Satish Jarkiholi is the natural choice to replace Mr Siddharamaiah if the incumbent were to be arrested by the ED. There are indications that Mr. Siddaramaiah has favoured Mr. Jarkiholi, always identified as a man close to him, over other Congress leaders in case he has to quit midway. This, even as Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar has for long been waiting in the wings and sees himself as natural choice in case of a leadership change. All Congress leaders, however, have stoutly denied plan or possibility of change in leadership.

Followers of Mr. Jarkiholi claim that the Valmiki Bedar Nayaka community leader has the support of around 70 MLAs. “He not only enjoys the support of legislators from the AHINDA (minorities, backward classes and SC/ST) but also those from dominant castes like the Lingayats and Vokkaligas,” said an MLA who has served as a minister in the past.